JTS to Host Masorti on Campus Student-Leadership Shabbaton Weekend of Study and Celebration

The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is pleased to host a Shabbaton weekend of education and celebration presented by Masorti on Campus, the new student-run leadership development organization for young Jews on college and university campuses. The Shabbaton will take place Friday, February 21, through Sunday, February 23, at JTS (3080 Broadway at 122nd Street in New York City), and will gather student leaders from campuses across North America. Current student leaders who are 18 to 24 years old can register. The Shabbaton promises to be an experience filled with powerful learning, meaningful prayer, and many new friendships.

Shabbaton participants will be inspired by professional leaders and trainers from the Jewish world, and given tools and techniques to reimagine and grow their own campus communities. Topics will include effective goal setting, short- and long-term planning, and engagement and publicity techniques. Young leaders will collaborate, share best practices, and encourage each other in their work. The weekend will include opportunities for student leaders to celebrate Shabbat (the Sabbath), study Torah, and relax in New York City.

Masorti on Campus, committed to promoting the growth of educated and thoughtful Jewish adults, is the network for Conservative and Masorti / traditional-egalitarian and pluralistic Jewish communities on North American college campuses. Its 18-to-24-year-old members value the love of Torah, devotion to social justice, and dedication to community and Israel, and hold these principles to be the future of Judaism. Using established communities as its starting point, and the students-hosting-students model, the intercampus network is developing numerous community projects, including a series of regional and national Shabbatonim to be coordinated with the help of university Jewish-life organizations.

JTS is pleased to support the efforts of Masorti on Campus and other organizations that help young Jews bond with Judaism and each other, and offers students a foundation in Conservative Judaism and leadership training in all of its five schools and affiliates. Its Albert A. List College of Jewish Studiesundergraduate school program, for example, features an important Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship;The Rabbinical School of JTS offers its Nishma Beit Midrash program; and the National Ramah Commission of The Jewish Theological Seminary recently introduced Reshet Ramah, a program that is bringing together tens of thousands of Ramah alumni, many of whom are on college campuses.

“We at JTS believe that it is vitally important to keep college students connected to the Conservative Movement,” says JTS’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer Marc Gary. “Students are the future leaders and lifeblood of Conservative Judaism in North America, and we need to support their efforts in a multiplicity of ways.”